August 21, 2009--Trained dolphins perform tricks in Taiji, a small Japanese fishing town, in this undated photo.

But it's Taiji's dead dolphins that have made it infamous among animal rights activists: Every year 2,000 dolphins are corralled into a local cove and stabbed to death with harpoons. Most are sold for food, but about a hundred are taken alive and exported to aquariums in Japan, South Korea, Iran, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. (Read full story.)

The Taiji hunt is the subject of The Cove, a 2009 documentary that follows an international team of activists on their mission to document the hunt.